The public Donald Trump is nearly as astonishing as the one who appears in insiders’ tales

Never have so many beans been spilled by so many ex-White House staffers, Sean O'Grady says

Through a glass darkly: it seems anyone who emerges from the American government needs to write a book as some sort of PTSD therapy (Matt Barnard/Tulsa World/AP)

Say what you will about Donald J Trump, but he’s certainly made America’s book trade great again. Greatest ever, beautiful, as he might say. Never before in US history have so many beans been spilt by so many ex-White House staffers. The rapid turnover in the administration, and its sometimes unorthodox ways, have produced a healthy supply of egos with a story to tell and beans to spill all over the Rose Garden. Normally this stuff spews out messily when an administration leaves office; not this time.

The American public had to wait to discover how profane Richard Nixon was in private, or how amorous was Jack Kennedy. Now there’s at least a dozen books by those who’ve known or worked with Trump very recently, plus plenty more indirectly linked to events, such as the gripping reads from Michael Wolff and Bob Woodward, where the intimidating presence of Steve Bannon is almost tangible. They’ll have to reinvent the Dewey Decimal system to cope.

John Bolton, former national security adviser (the third in three years) is only the latest to make a contribution to the booming sub-genre. It very much conforms to type. There’s the usual appalling Trumpian ignorance, such as not realising Finland is a country or knowing the UK has (US-supplied) nuclear weapons; the alleged leaning on foreign leaders to help get him re-elected, this time pleading with President Xi for China to buy more midwestern farm produce; and the usual vulgar abuse, such as secretary of state Mike Pompeo’s assessment that the leader of the free world is “full of shit”.